KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures reversed early gains on Tuesday and ended a nine-day rally, dragged by weaker prices of rival soyaoil and expectations of a sharp recovery in production.

The benchmark palm oil contract for June delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed down 120 ringgit, or 3%, at 3,900 ringgit ($948.44) a tonne.

Palm eased from a 13-year high hit in the previous session, and ended their longest winning streak since June 2002.

The Southern Peninsula Palm Oil Millers’ association had forecast production during March 1-15 to fall 62% from the previous month, traders said.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for March 1-15 fell 1% to 549,273 tonnes from the same period in February, according to data from Societe Generale de Surveillance.

“This is a drastic improvement from March 1-10, which showed a decline of 22%,” said Sathia Varqa, co-founder of Singapore-based Palm Oil Analytics.

“Improving production in Malaysia in March may reverse some of the price gains this week.”

European Union palm oil imports in the 2020/21 season that started last July reached 3.87 million tonnes, compared with 4.01 million a year earlier, data published by the European Commission showed on Monday.

Dalian’s most-active soyaoil contract fell 0.3% and its palm oil contract declined 1.7%. Soyaoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade dropped 0.8%.

Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.